


Twenty

by quigonejinn



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The version of the story where Stacker doesn’t get a nosebleed in the elevator.   <i>Ten kills?  We could have had twenty.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty

**Author's Note:**

> This fic exists because of [this tumblr post](http://it-varys.tumblr.com/post/63292971327/horizontal-flip-for-rhod-to-go-with-this-and) and [this other one](http://it-varys.tumblr.com/post/63251415743/i-call-this-gifset-golly-do-you-think-both-these#Notes). 
> 
> THEIR TINY LITTLE SIMULTANEOUS NODS. OH MY GOD.

There is a version of the story where Stacker doesn’t get a nosebleed in the elevator: the capillary bursts five seconds earlier or thirty seconds later. Alternatively, Stacker isn’t alone on the elevator. A pair of nervous technicians? Maybe Hermann, with new complaints about Newt Geiszler that Stacker has to manage? 

However you want to get there, in this universe, Stacker isn’t alone with a reminder of how soon he will be dead. When Raleigh reports to the ConnPOD, the third candidate from the Kwoon meets him.

At the end of the calibration, Raleigh still looks over his shoulder. He still has a flashback of looking through Yancy’s eyes and being ripped out of the Conn-POD, but Cheng didn’t rebuild Gipsy Danger. The rebuilt Gipsy Danger isn’t the product of two years of bitter labor — love and sweat and tears and blood and resources and thousands and thousands of hours of living with the schematics and possibilities and dreams of his soul. 

So Cheng falls into a memory of HK-9 making landfall and providing the bones around which the Boneslums are built — screaming, terror, falling rubble, holding his little sister in his arms in the dust while their mother bled out around the fifty-pound chunk of concrete that went through her chest. Tears run down Cheng’s face, and while strapped to the motion harness, he sets down what, in his RABIT, is the body of his sister. Face twisted with fury, Cheng raises his right hand to trigger the plasma cannon — similar sequence, but with Cheng, the failsafe works, and Pentecost will have sharp words with Raleigh about keeping himself under control, but there is no fight in the hallway. Chuck Hansen isn’t quite as exercised, and when the Hansens come out of Pentecost’s office, they do it together. Chuck looks daggers at Raleigh, and Herc drags him off by the elbow.

There is no moment when Raleigh’s co-pilot asks to be excused. There is no moment when Raleigh runs after Pentecost and makes the mistake of grabbing his arm. 

Instead, after the double event, Mako comes to the door of the Hansen quarters. Does Max know it’s her? He barks, and Chuck opens the door and uses his leg to keep Max from climbing over the door sill to get to Mako. She looks at Chuck. Chuck looks back at her. As far as the records show, despite extensive testing, Chuck Hansen has only managed to successfully Drift with two people: nineteen test simulations, eighteen Jaeger deployments with his father. Ten kills, more than anyone else in history. 

Also: forty-three test simulations with Mako Mori. No Jaeger deployments. 

So after the double event, Mako looks at Chuck. Chuck looks at Mako and he continues to try to keep Max from jumping over the door frame and drooling on Mako. 

Eventually, she steps inside, and Chuck closes the door behind her. 

…

"A long time ago, _sensei_ , you made me a promise.”

Mako looks at Stacker. Stacker looks back at her and sees his face reflected up him in the black surface of her Drivesuit. She is holding her helmet under her arm; distantly, he hears Herc and Chuck having a quiet, agonized conversation. Max barks. 

…

"A long time ago, Chuck, you made me a promise."

Chuck looks at Mako, and she looks back at him. Technically, he promised her more than once, starting from when they were twelve, when they were thirteen, when they were fourteen, when they were at the Academy together at fifteen, when they were in Sydney at sixteen and there were noises about Australia commissioning the first Mark V, and Mako came to visit him and they holed up in his bunk and Max was disconsolate at being separated from his two favorite humans, but it was really hard to have sex with a dog trying to climb up into bed, and afterwards, Mako was curled up against his shoulder and Chuck was having his his growth spurt, putting on height every time he had a square meal -- all those times, he told her, over and over, that he couldn’t imagine piloting without her. He wouldn’t. 

After Chuck took Striker Eureka with his father, she stopped speaking to him. 

…

So they haven’t so much as said a word to each other in years, but who needs to? How much do you need to say when you’ve Drifted with someone and are back in the Drift with them? It’s been half a decade, but when joined by the Pons mechanism, they are as silent and deep and clean and quiet as they always were.

Better, in fact. The funding mandate for an all-Australian team came late in the game, so Striker’s speed and close-range armament of sting blades were always designed for Mako in mind, to take advantage of her speed and superior martial arts ability. With her in Striker and Chuck’s strength and aggressiveness backing her, they can almost -- almost -- fight a Category-4 and a Category-5 at the same time. Can Gipsy Danger do that? Chuck and Mako’s minds are joined on an almost molecular level, and Mako’s analysis ripples across both their minds. Gipsy Danger is one-of-a-kind, but she isn’t Striker Eureka. Raleigh and Cheng haven’t had forty-three drops, forty-three kills. They don’t have -- 

Mako was ten when Onibaba came to Tokyo, and her childhood ended while watching fighter jets streak overhead and fail against a kaiju. Chuck was eleven when Scissure destroyed half of Sydney, and he stopped being a child when the helicopter touched down on the tarmac and he realized that his father was crying because there would be no second trip out for his mother.

Whatever came after childhood, Chuck and Mako went through it together. 

_Ten kills? We could have had twenty._

Scunner knows which side is driving both sting blades, and it slams its hideous, thousand-toothed mouth down on left side of the Conn-POD. Water breaches the hull; the release mechanism on the bomb is jammed. Mako looks over at Chuck. Chuck looks back at her. They nod at each other. 

_Gipsy is nuclear,_ they say into the conn. _Take her into the Breach. We’ll clear a path._

…

Chuck is the one who still has breath, so he takes off his helmet. 

He flips the conn switch. He says _aishitemasu_ for both of them, for both of their fathers. 

They hit the switches together.


End file.
